Kurt Vonnegut Jr. - The Sirens of Titan

"The friendly crowd out there," continued Redwine, "could turn quite ugly quite fast, despite the high auspices under which you come."

Unk had been planning to say almost exactly what Redwine had warned him against saying. It had seemed the only proper speech to make. "What - what should I say?" said Unk.

"It has been prophesied what you will say," said Redwine, "word for word. I have thought long and hard about the words you are going to say, and I am convinced they cannot be improved upon."

"But I can't think of any words - except hello - thank you - " said Unk. "What do you want me to say?"

"What you do say," said Redwine. "Those good people out there have been rehearsing this moment for a long time. They will ask you two questions, and you will answer them to the best of your ability."

He led Unk through the airlock to the outside. The fire engine's fountain had been turned off. The shouting and dancing had stopped.

Redwine's congregation now formed a semicircle around Unk and Redwine. The members of the congregation had their lips pressed tightly together and their lungs filled.

Redwine gave a saintly signal.

The congregation spoke as one. "Who are you?" they said.

"I - I don't know my real name," said Unk. "They called me Unk."

"What happened to you?" said the congregation. Unk shook his head vaguely. He could think of no apt condensation of his adventures for the obviously ritual mood. Something great was plainly expected of him. He was not up to greatness. He exhaled noisily, letting the congregation know that he was sorry to fail them with his colorlessness. "I was a victim of a series of accidents," he said. He shrugged. "As are we all," he said.

The cheering and dancing began again.

Unk was hustled aboard the fire engine, and driven on it to the door of the church.

Redwine pointed amiably to an unfurled wooden scroll over the door. Incised in the scroll and gilded were these words:

I WAS A VICTIM OF A SERIES OF ACCIDENTS,

AS ARE WE ALL.

Unk was driven on the fire engine straight from the church to Newport, Rhode Island, where a materialization was due to take place.

According to a plan that had been set up years before, other fire apparatus on Cape Cod was shifted so as to protect West Barnstable, which would be without its pumper for a little while.

Word of the Space Wanderer's coming spread over the Earth like wildfire. In every village, town, and city through which the fire engine passed, Unk was pelted with flowers.

Unk sat high on the fire engine, on a two-by-six fir timber laid across the cockpit amidships. In the cockpit itself was the Reverend C. Homer Redwine.

Redwine had control of the fire engine's bell, which he rang assiduously. Attached to the clapper of the bell was a Malachi made of high-impact plastic. The doll was of a special sort that could be bought only in Newport. To display such a Malachi was to proclaim that one had made a pilgrimage to Newport.

The entire Volunteer Fire Department of West Barnstable, with the exception of two non-conformists, had made such a pilgrimage to Newport. The fire engine's Malachi had been bought with Fire Department funds.

In the parlance of the souvenir hawkers in Newport, the Fire Department's high-impact plastic Malachi was a "genuwine, authorized, official Malachi."

Unk was happy, because it was so good to be among people again, and to be breathing air again. And everybody seemed to adore him so.

There was so much good noise. There was so much good everything. Unk hoped the good everything would go on forever.

"What happened to you?" the people all yelled to him, and they laughed.

For the purposes of mass communications, Unk shortened the answer that had pleased the little crowd so much at the Church of the Space Wanderer. "Accidents!" he yelled.

He laughed. Oh boy.

What the hell. He laughed.

In Newport, the Rumfoord estate had been packed to the walls for eight hours. Guards turned thousands away from the little door in the wall. The guards were hardly necessary, since the crowd inside was monolithic.

A greased eel couldn't have squeezed in.

The thousands of pilgrims outside the walls now jostled one another piously for positions close to the loudspeakers mounted at the corners of the walls.

From the speakers would come Rumfoord's voice.

The crowd was the largest yet and the most excited yet, for the day was the long-promised Great Day of the Space Wanderer.

Handicaps of the most imaginative and effective sort were displayed everywhere. The crowd was wonderfully drab and hampered.

Bee, who had been Unk's mate on Mars, was in Newport, too. So was Bee's and Unk's son, Chrono.

"Hey! - getcher genuwine, authorized, official Malachis here," said Bee hoarsely. "Hey! - getcher Malachis here. Gotta have a Malachi to wave at the Space Wanderer," said Bee. "Get a Malachi, so the Space Wanderer can bless it when he comes by."

She was in a booth facing the little iron door in the wall of the Rumfoord estate in Newport. Bee's booth was the first in the line of twenty booths that faced the door. The twenty booths were under one continuous shed roof, and were separated from one another by waist-high partitions.

The Malachis she was hawking were plastic dolls with movable joints and rhinestone eyes. Bee bought them from a religious supply house for twenty-seven cents apiece and sold them for three dollars. She was an excellent businesswoman.

And while Bee showed the world an efficient and flashy exterior, it was the grandeur within her that sold more merchandise than anything. The carnival flash of Bee caught the pilgrims' eyes. But what brought the pilgrims to her booth and made them buy was her aura. The aura said unmistakably that Bee was meant for a far nobler station in life, that she was being an awfully good sport about being stuck where she was.

"Hey! - getcher Malachi while there's still time," said Bee. "Can't get a Malachi while a materialization's going on!"

That was true. The rule was that the concessionaires had to close their shutters five minutes before Winston Niles Rumfoord and his dog materialized. And they had to keep their shutters closed until ten minutes after the last trace of Rumfoord and Kazak had disappeared.

Bee turned to her son, Chrono, who was opening a fresh case of Malachis. "How long before the whistle?" she said. The whistle was a great steam whistle inside the estate. It was blown five minutes in advance of materializations.

Materializations themselves were announced by the firing of a three-inch cannon.

Dematerializations were announced by the release of a thousand toy balloons.

"Eight minutes," said Chrono, looking at his watch. He was eleven Earthling years old now. He was dark and smoldering. He was an expert short-changer, and was clever with cards. He was foul-mouthed, and carried a switch-knife with a six-inch blade. Chrono would not socialize well with other children, and his reputation for dealing with life courageously and directly was so bad that only a few very foolish and very pretty little girls were attracted to him.

Chrono was classified by the Newport Police Department and by the Rhode Island State Police as a juvenile delinquent. He knew at least fifty law-enforcement officers by their first names, and was a veteran of fourteen lie-detector tests.

All that prevented Chrono's being placed in an institution was the finest legal staff on Earth, the legal staff of the Church of God the Utterly Indifferent. Under the direction of Rumfoord, the staff defended Chrono against all charges.

The commonest charges brought against Chrono were larceny by sleight of hand, carrying concealed weapons, possessing unregistered pistols, discharging firearms within the city limits, selling obscene prints and articles, and being a wayward child.